Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Hong Kong Finish - Myrna

I was able to press the princess seam relatively flat and even without clipping which made finishing it quite easy. The bias strips are from a hand dyed silk out of my scrap box. There was just enough. I have two long strips left for the armhole seams. I'll bind them together not open.




Last night I finished seven seams or fourteen edges. It took just over two hours. I'm not sure that's any faster than hand stitching however, it's something I've never done before and I'm quite pleased with how it looks.




I do have one OOPS to work around. When I cut out the sleeves, I cut two the same and have no extra fabric to work with. When I re-cut the curve of the one sleeve, there was only a 1/4" seam allowance left in the narrowest spot. I stitched along the seam line to mark it and will stitch to tissue paper when I put in the easing and then trace the edge something like what's in this image below.




That way, when I pin the sleeve in, I can line the edges up correctly, stitch, and then trim to 1/4" and finish the seam with the bias strips. In theory - it should work just fine. After that, I'll need to figure out the edges.

- Myrna

3 comments:

  1. Looks great. I really like you pattern choice, can't wait to see the jacket done.

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  2. I've done this "oops" before. I came up with stitching a bit of fabric to the seam allowance to extend whatever it was, but don't think that will work in this case because of the placement (set sleeve) and fabric bulk. At 1/4", could you hand-stitch a super-narrow hong kong finish? Or is that out of the question in an armscye/sleeve area??

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